Email lists ESU employee complaints on Sanders

Recently released 2004 memo alleges longtime staffing problems

Complaints about East Stroudsburg University's former top fundraiser, Isaac Sanders, go back as far as 2004, according to an email alleging Sanders intimidated his employees and favored minority job applicants.

In August 2007, the first sexual harassment complaint was filed against Sanders by a male student who worked in Sanders' office.

That complaint was later investigated, and dismissed, by the...

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The case against Isaac Sanders

In August 2007, the first sexual harassment complaint was filed against Sanders by a male student who worked in Sanders' office.

That complaint was later investigated, and dismissed, by the university.

Sanders was placed on administrative leave with pay in July 2008 after several more students came forward making similar allegations.

Sanders was fired from his job in October 2008 after an investigation by an outside law firm.

In February 2009, six current and former students filed a civil lawsuit against Sanders and East Stroudsburg University, alleging they were sexually harassed by Sanders.

Their civil complaint alleges that Sanders, the former vice president of advancement and executive director of the nonprofit ESU Foundation, provided gifts, scholarships and jobs in exchange for unwanted attempts at sexual intimacy.

The suit also names as defendants other top campus officials, accusing them of covering up the alleged crimes.

Three of the students eventually had their claims dismissed because of the statute of limitations.

The case is scheduled to be heard in federal court Oct. 28.

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Complaints about East Stroudsburg University's former top fundraiser, Isaac Sanders, go back as far as 2004, according to an email alleging Sanders intimidated his employees and favored minority job applicants.

The email, from Susan McGarry, ESU's vice president for human resources at the time, was sent to then-ESU President Robert Dillman; Julie Del Giorno, who was Dillman's executive assistant; and Victoria Sanders (no relation to Isaac Sanders), who was the university's associate vice president for diversity and equity.

The Oct. 29, 2004, email is one of many documents recently filed as exhibits in a federal lawsuit slated to come to trial in the fall.

"As per our conversation, following are some issues that have been brought to my attention on more than one occasion from SEVERAL of Isaac's staff regarding his approach to the search process," the email begins.

"I am extremely concerned about how he appears to be intimidating people to make recommendations that might not be in the University's best interest."

In a list, numbered one through nine, McGarry goes on to outline the concerns various employees had about Sanders.

The email does not specify which job search was being undertaken at the time. However, Sanders hired Vincent Dent as director of major gifts at ESU in March 2005.

Dent left the university in January 2008, after which it was revealed that during his ESU tenure he charged an array of personal expenses to his university-issued credit card, which was paid for with public funds.

The charges included a four-piece set of luggage, $280 for a suit and alterations, as well as a silk tie, dry cleaning, eyeglasses, golf clubs, golf shirts, car washes, shoes, a monthly E-Z pass fee, the registration fee for the access card to his gated community and repeated car rentals for regional travel, including $1,500 as part of a larger charge for a six-month rental.

The total for those charges topped $4,000.

In a previous interview with the Pocono Record, Dent had said he repaid all of the expenses.

McGarry also did not immediately return a phone call or email for comment.

She stopped working at the university in 2006.

Dillman did not immediately return a phone call for comment. Dillman does address the email in a recently released 275-page transcript of his deposition.

"As a result of this memo, did you or anybody from human resources interview anyone in the office, the Advancement Office, concerning these complaints about discrimination?" asked Albert Murray, attorney for the plaintiffs, during Dillman's Dec. 21, 2011, deposition.

"Not to my knowledge," Dillman said.

"Did you look into this issue and start an investigation?" Murray asked.

"Well, I talked to Isaac Sanders about it, yes," Dillman responded.

"Well, he denied that he was trying to do anything that would cast any aspersions at one group versus another. I told him that he was — in my view he needed to follow the procedures and that he was supposed to be open to get the best candidate, I remember saying."

"I never really heard much more about it after my conversation with him," Dillman said.

"I trusted Susan's memo from the standpoint I don't think she would have just been putting this together, but I also believe that I did talk to him about it, as I recall, and that he understood what I was asking him to do," Dillman said.

Dillman did not remember which three employees were terminated from Sanders' division.

"I wouldn't have known that anyway," Dillman said when asked about the terminated employees.

As for the hiring process in the advancement office where Sanders worked, there was a certain protocol to follow, Dillman said in his deposition.

That involved setting up a hiring committee, which would have included a chairperson, and people who represent "different elements that these individuals would be working with," Dillman said.

Often, there would be a member of human resources on the search committee, he said.

Although a committee had been set up, it was up to Sanders to make the final decision of whom to hire, Dillman said in the deposition.